To say Kyuhyun had a few questions was the understatement of the century; he didn’t know where to begin. He pretended like he didn’t notice how Sungmin had stiffened the moment they locked eyes, the way he had winced as Kyuhyun mentioned the old nickname he had for him, or how awkwardly formal Sungmin was being. Especially considering how close they had been.

He didn’t want to overthink things, however; how long had it been since they’d last seen each other? It had been at Sungmin’s graduation, so about 8 years, give or take. Just thinking about the loneliness he felt afterwards, when Sungmin’s personality seemed to do a 180 and he wouldn’t return his calls or texts, made him want to stop any train of thought from the past in its tracks. 8 years ago, he repeated to himself.

Too much time had passed for him to hold a grudge, and he couldn’t anyway; not at Sungmin. He couldn’t deny how happy he had been to see his former best-friend no matter what had happened, so he was going to make the best of it. Things from the past were better left there, and since they were going to be together for an entire week, there was no use going through awkward little chit chat and hung-up on hidden feelings of animosity. So Kyuhyun was going to act courteous, in part because he missed his best friend and also because perhaps things had changed in those 8 years. God knows he had. They weren’t stupid, moody teenagers anymore, after all. It would be childish to let the past dominate their relationship in the present.

Nodding to himself about his thoughts, Kyuhyun had been too distracted to even hear what Hyukjae had said.

“That okay Kyuhyun?” he had asked him, leaving Kyuhyun to finally focus on the rest of the group. Sungmin had his head down in what appeared to be deep thought, and Kyuhyun turned back to Hyukjae in question.

“What?”

“I suggested we pair up, so you’ll be with Sungmin,” Hyukjae repeated himself, this time not even in the form of a question. It caught Kyuhyun off guard.

“In the tent?” he nearly screeched, clearing his throat immediately afterwards in attempt to hide his shock.

“Where else?” his friend rolled his eyes, turning back to the rest of the group.

Kyuhyun glanced at Sungmin, noticing the blank look he had on his face. He felt a little relieved at this, almost expecting the other to be disgusted at the mention of close proximity to him- for reasons he’d rather not deal with at the moment.

So, that was it. They were sharing a tent, making their already awkward awkwardness more… awkward.

A couple more hours of comfortable chatter among them passed, and Siwon announced that the 3 logs of wood he’d place inside the fire pit were the last ones for the night.

He watched the flames away at the wood, the fire roaring back to life with the addition of more burning material. It was captivating and wonderful, little orange burning pieces of ash floating up from the crackling logs. Unable to stop himself, Kyuhyun glanced at Sungmin and his breath caught.

How was he supposed to just ignore the fact that Sungmin had gotten even more stunning over the years, the gentle smile he’d always worn gracing his lips still? The fire illuminated his face, bright orange flames flickering in his wide brown eyes and Kyuhyun couldn’t look away. The campfire then seemed like only the flicker of a candle compared to the brightness Sungmin radiated.

This was exactly what he was trying to avoid; this overwhelming feeling of desire, of longing. For someone that he never had and would never have.

He got up abruptly, earning himself the stare of all who were huddled close to the fire. He stretched his limbs, willing a yawn to erupt from his lips. “I’m going to bed,” he announced.

Sungmin’s eyes flickered up to him, and he was surprised to see the elder also rise up out of his chair.

“I guess I should go too, so I don’t disturb you later,” Sungmin reasoned. “Which tent are we sleeping in?”

Kyuhyun gestured towards a blue tent on the far right corner of the campsite. “That one’s mine.”

Sungmin nodded. “Alright, I’m gonna go brush my teeth.” He walked over towards the table in the center of the campsite and grabbed some stuff from his bag, then turned towards him, “Do you need to use the bathroom? We could go together,” Sungmin offered, his face showing no sign of any negative emotion. Rather it was friendly, albeit maybe a bit forced.

“Yeah, let me get my stuff and flashlight,” he agreed, following Sungmin’s lead. He was relieved to see he wasn’t going to be alone in making the situation bearable.

Kyuhyun clicked his flashlight on, a bag with his glasses, contact lenses box, contact solution, toothpaste, toothbrush, and face wash held tightly in the other hand, before jogging over to where Sungmin was waiting for him. The bathrooms weren’t too far from their site, but there were no lights anywhere except for the distant flicker of campfires from other campsites. They began their walk towards the closest restroom, the only close sound to be heard being the soft crunch of dirt under their shoes.

“Have you been here before?” Kyuhyun heard the faint voice next to him ask.

“Yeah, Siwon, Hyukjae and I come out here every year,” he replied, grateful that the other had started the conversation. He wasn’t sure if it would be all that welcome if he had.

“Really?” the Sungmin turned towards him in a mild surprise. “What’s your occupation?” he questioned abruptly, totally changing the subject.

“I work in Siwon’s company as the technology director,” he shrugged. “Why?”

“Well that explains why you can afford to come out here every year,” Sungmin scoffed. “I don’t even want to check my bank account after all the spending I’ve done just for this one trip.”

“What do you do?” Kyuhyun found himself asking, thinking it wasn’t really an invasion of privacy considering Sungmin asked him first.

“I took over my parent's’ cafe after-” Sungmin stopped talking, as if he was correcting himself, “after my mom couldn’t handle it anymore,” he finished, stepping into the restroom. Without offering anything else, he began to brush his teeth so Kyuhyun didn’t ask anything further. He didn’t know why but he sensed the other didn’t want to talk about it, for whatever reason, so he wasn’t going to pry. He was always good at reading Sungmin, and that was one of the reasons they had such a close friendship in the past; Kyuhyun seemed to know which boundaries he could cross and which were off limits. This was clearly the latter, if Sungmin’s stiff posture was anything to go by.

They finished up their nightly routines in silence, heading back to the campsite and seeing the fire was out and everyone was gathering their things to take their own trip to the restroom. Some food and things were still out on the table, and Kyuhyun already knew the drill. Being the youngest kinda .

“You can go ahead and get comfortable, I have to put away all the food in the bear-proof containers and throw away the trash or else we’ll have a variety of racoons, squirrels and bears trashing our site,” he grumbled, already placing the mayo, pickles, ketchup, and mustard into the ice chest.

“I’ll help you then,” Sungmin offered, again all niceness and soft smiles.

Together they put away all the food, and threw out the trash in the bear-proof dumpsters a short walk from their site.

“Do you have anything that’s scented in your bag?” he asked Sungmin, he himself putting all his toiletries in a bag and stuffing it into the giant brown metal box.

“Well like lotion and stuff like that but not food…” Sungmin replied, looking confused. “Bears know the difference between what’s food and what isn’t, right?”

“They’re clever but unfortunately no. Anything that is scented draws their attention and unless you want us and our tent to be clawed to shreds, I suggest you put anything with even a faint scent in the box. Even anything that might smell in your car cause trust me, they’ll break into that too,” he advised. “There are a lot of bears in this area.”

That seemed to be enough to convince Sungmin as he searched his car and belongings for anything that needed to be locked away. Once all that was done, the elder took his sleeping bag and the rest of his things toward the tent and opened the zipper. He threw his stuff inside and then stepped in, head crouched down to not hit the top. Kyuhyun also folded his body gracelessly to fit inside, zipping the tent back up and reaching for his own sleeping bag.

“Which side do you want?” he asked Sungmin as he rolled the sleeping bag out.

Sungmin did the sam